Anonymous identifies its next target: Facebook

[nsane.forums]

Anonymous came back with a bang last week, taking numerous high profile sites offline in retaliation for action against MegaUpload. Now, Anonymous has set its sights on a major new target: Facebook.

Following last week’s take-down of MegaUpload, the cyber-activist organisation known as Anonymous blasted back into the public eye with a series of retaliatory strikes against high profile web targets, such as the Motion Picture Association of America, Universal Music Group, and even Government sites, such as those of the United States Copyright Office and the Department of Justice.

A new threat has been made today, via a YouTube account believed to be connected to Anonymous, setting the group’s sights on a very large target – Facebook – and inviting web users to join in the strike against the social network.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVSQ3JIgIXE&feature=player_embedded

The video asks viewers if they would “like to become part of the greatest internet protest and first official cyber war”, further explaining that “Operation Global Blackout is ongoing and everyone can be a part of it”. The war is said to be against the United States Government, but the aim of taking down a site as large as Facebook – which the video acknowledges has over 60,000 servers worldwide, and will therefore not fall easily – appears to be “to show them that we are not playing”.

Viewers are encouraged to join the Anonymous fight by downloading the LOIC software, with all users directed to run it simultaneously to flood Facebook’s servers with service requests. This DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack is not intended to compromise user data or to hack into individual user accounts or profiles, but simply to bring down the entire service in one go. In this respect, one might view a DDoS attack as largely a weapon of inconvenience, but Anonymous hopes to demonstrate its capabilities in amassing a ‘citizen cyber-army’ that can be called upon to carry out strikes as needed.

The attack is scheduled to take place on 28 January 2012 at 12am (time zone not stated), so be prepared to go without your status updates for a few hours on the big day.

View: Original Article

[DKT27]

Fake!

Anonymous: no Facebook attack on January 28

The hacktivist group Anonymous will not be attacking Facebook at 12:00 AM EST on January 28, 2012. Anonymous has denied the claims made in a video released earlier today.

The hacktivist group Anonymous has been very active in the last few days, including taking down the websites for the DOJ, RIAA, MPAA, Universal Music, and Vivendi. Even CBS, ZDNet’s parent company, was hit by a Domain Name System (DNS) poisoning attack. Earlier today, a video explaining a plan to attack Facebook at 12:00 AM EST on January 28, 2012 was released.

I wasn’t sure about the claims made, but the video and timing were much better than last time. I wrote the story up and promised you I would look for signs that the story is not true. Even while writing it, I checked all the usual sources and nothing seemed out of the ordinary, although I did write: “What makes me skeptical (again) about this claim is that no reason for attacking Facebook is given other than ‘to show them indeed that we are not, playing.’”

As you can see in the screenshot above, the proof I needed was posted a few hours after I finished my story about the video. Just like a few months ago, the Twitter account AnonOps has once again debunked the story that Anonymous will attack Facebook: “Again we must say that we will not attack #Facebook! Again the mass media lie.”

It’s great to get confirmation from AnonOps that this story is not true, although a bit ironic given that it was the account that made me think the attack could be real this time, even after all the time I spent debunking it last time. A few hours before, this tweet went out: “#ActAgainstACTA - News about an #Anonymous huge operation soon >> bit.ly/xCzf36.” I should have figured that Anonymous wouldn’t target Facebook over ACTA, but that’s my error, and I apologize for it. If you want to read about what Anonymous’ plan is, check out the blog post Things you need to know about ACTA.

I’ll be watching AnonOps, GroupAnon, and a few other sources to see if anything else surfaces regarding the fact that Anonymous will not be attacking Facebook this Saturday.

Last time, Anonymous made it clear that that it did not support attacking Facebook on November 5, 2011. Both of the aforementioned Twitter accounts sent out multiple tweets denying the claims. The story was that a small number of members thought Facebook deserved to be taken down.

I haven’t figured out yet if the same thing is happening here (are a few rogue Anonymous members trying to take down the world’s largest social network?) or if this is some other scam trying to take advantage of the Anonymous name (there are some whispers that the whole point was to spread malware). Either way, I’ll do my best to keep you posted.

:view: View: Original Article

Anonymous will never, I repeat never attack Facebook as it's one of the best means for conversation, freedom of speech and in general, they have decided that they won't do any attacks that effects general public directly.

[BBs]

deja vu!

[alaindc]

this was so oviously fake!

[Adrean]

I thought so. They didn't even explain why they would want an attack..at least I don't think they did.

[Ambrocious]

Aw dangit! I was hoping this was real...my birthday is on January 28th!

How you can tell if an attack is real: It ussually happens first, and then it is explained.

It is EXTREMELY unprofessional to expose your next move on a chess set.

[beer]

I think facebook and anonymous have a common enemy right now.